REMEMBER US by Glenna Sinclair Page B

technology company with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. It was a huge contract that would push my fledgling company into a company with a solid future. Randy had friends in high places, friends who told him things. And he shared a few of those things with me over lunch one afternoon.
    “Your mom works for Grant Wallace, right?”
    “She does.”
    “For a long time?”
    I set my wine glass down and looked over at Randy. We’d been talking about football a moment ago, so the change in subject was a little jarring.
    “Since I was a toddler. Why?”
    Randy looked down at his plate for a moment, as though weighing his next words. “I’m not really at liberty to talk about such things,” he said in a slow, deliberate tone, “but you’ve proved to be an honest man in our business dealings, and I would feel like a hypocrite if I didn’t say something.”
    “Alright,” I said, wondering what the hell he was getting at.
    “A friend of mine works with Homeland Security. And he’s mentioned a new investigation taking place in Los Angeles. Something to do with business deals involving members of ISIS.”
    He didn’t need to say much more. And he didn’t. But the look he gave said more than words ever could.
    An FBI agent called me a few days later.
    “They told me that they’d been monitoring communications coming into and going out of Grant’s office for some time, but Grant was too smart, too careful. They couldn’t prove anything.”
    “They asked you to help.”
    I ran my palms over the top of my pants, wiping away the sweat that always gathered there when I thought about these things. It made me sick to my stomach and wish that I’d never gone to that lunch with Randy, that I’d never agreed to take on his contract. But I had and now I had to deal with the fallout.
    “I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought that maybe it was a misunderstanding. The government had become so paranoid since the attacks on the eleventh of September. They saw conspiracies where none had ever existed. I wanted to believe that was what was happening now.”
    “But…”
    I looked at Harley and remembered how all I wanted during that time was to go to her in Texas and forget about all of this. I even considered giving up my business, leaving behind all my friends and my mom, leaving everything behind to be with her and run from this craziness.
    “I began investigating on my own. Grant was one of my first customers in the security firm. I did something I swore I would never do. I used my software to look around Grant’s computers and used my cameras to watch footage of the late night comings and goings of the people at his firm. And when that didn’t reveal anything truly incriminating, I used my access to install other software that he never agreed to. Spyware that could find things that Grant could never hide—no matter how smart or how inventive he was. Things the government would never find through legal channels.”
    “They’re using you.” Harley gasped, as though she still believed in an honest and paternal government. “They set you up because they knew what you would do.”
    “And I fell headlong into their trap.”
    She sat beside me and slid her hand into mine.
    “Are they guilty?”
    I nodded. “Grant is helping some members of ISIS buy up real estate here in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago for reasons I can’t begin to guess. And he’s making it all look perfectly legal.”
    “Does he know who…?”
    “Grant is a very intelligent man. And he’s taking a hell of a lot of money for these transactions, so much more than he would normally charge. So, yeah, I’d guess he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
    “And Homeland Security is trying to stop whatever ISIS is planning.”
    “They are. And they’re using me to do it.” I again ran my hands over the leg of my pants. “I don’t think they’re just after Grant. I think they want to convince him to give details about the